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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Will injecting an air bubble kill you?

J

John_Burrows

Bluelighter
Joined
Jul 31, 2008
Messages
1,007
The other day I was reading a tip from someone here on how to help be sure you're in a vein when trying to inject - he said don't push your solution all the way to the top, leave a little room; this way when you hit a vein, you may not even have to pull back on the plunger - the blood will have some room to push its way into the needle.

Maybe it's an old wives tale, but ive always heard that injecting an air bubble into someones vein is fatal.

Since I'm having trouble registering, this tip sounds logical, but wanted to check in here first.
 
I've never had blood come into a rig without pulling back but even a whole 1ml syringe of air wouldn't kill you, I don't know how much it would take but definitely more than that.
 
Then why do people say the last step in prepping your shot is you should push the plunger up and let a few drops of solution drip out the needle, effectively getting rid of all the air?
 
There's a risk and people don't know how much air it would take to cause a pulmonary embolism so they don't risk it at all...That's what I'd guess
 
John_Burrows said:
Then why do people say the last step in prepping your shot is you should push the plunger up and let a few drops of solution drip out the needle, effectively getting rid of all the air?
Click to expand...

So you can pull the plunger back once the needle is inside you, creating a vacuum and allowing you to know when your in a vein because blood will come spurting into the barrel of the syringe. Injecting small amount of air definitely won't kill you, I don't know when the amount of air injected starts to become dangerous though, so do some research mang ;).
 
So then I guess the question also is will this guys tip work? Will blood force its way into the syringe if you leave, say, one unit of air worth of space?
 
I was getting an iv at the ER and there was a little bubble in, i asked the nurse if she knew it was there and she said 10-15 CC's of air could probably kill you, or just give you a serious stroke, but a bubble isnt gonna do jack shit.
 
You need the bubble to not be in between the needle and the solution when it goes in your arm or it won't really work as a vacuum.
 
If a large amount of air (roughly 100ml injected very very quickly) enters your heart it can be locked down and fail to transport blood which will obviously lead to death.

However, it only takes about 2cc of air to kill you and much less to cause a heart attack if you have a patent foramen ovale and are unlucky. The foramen ovale is an opening between the atria of the heart which allows blood to flow from the right atrium to the left atrium. It usually closes at birth when your lungs start working. However in about 1 out 4 people it stays open.

Venous blood from your systemic circulation enters the right atrium and can (in the case of a PFO) then enter the left atrium from where it can again enter the arterial part of the systemic circulation through the left ventricle and the aorta, instead of entering the pulmonary circulation through the right ventricle as it is supposed to.

Regularly whichever amount of air enters the arterial part of the pulmonary circulation can simply be breathed off. No harm done.

In the case of air being pushed out into the arterial part of the systemic circulation it will end up in small arterioles (and proximally of those), causing the bloodflow to the tissue that the respective arterioles supply to stop and in turn causing said tissue to die.
Now in a best case scenario this will mean some random damage in the body that you might not even notice. In a worst case scenario the air will enter your coronary arteries (which supply the heart itself with blood). A very small amount of air can cause a heart attack there. Again very small heart attacks will go by unnoticed, but 2ml might kill you. The same goes

If you therefore have such a PFO it could happen that every few times you inject a tiny bubble you are causing a tiny heart attack or a tiny stroke or other tiny damages throughout your body... That being said, it's best to get rid of that air in the syringe!!

On a funny side note, check out this women who died due to aspirating air through her vagina while masturbating by inserting a carrot: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11453096
 
I think it is a risk thing. The risk of serious complications increases with the volume of air.
 
_DankOpiAmp_ said:
I think it is a risk thing. The risk of serious complications increases with the volume of air.
Click to expand...
No risk without a PFO. Unless you rapidly inject 100ml of air (like 1 heartbeat fast!), maybe 50ml in some cases.

However if you don't know if you have one there's about a 25% chance you do. If that's the case, there's a certain chance for air to get into the left atrium, higher for more air volume and more rapid injection and also varying depending on how the heart is rotated relative to the ground. If you know you don't have a PFO it's very safe to inject a few ml of air.
 
the typical AMOUNT OF AIR THAT IS CAUGHT IN a syringe, is not enough to be fatal, to some degree I think we all inject some amount of air to some degree...just try to get it all out no matter how frusterated u are not finding a vein..less air..makes it easier for the vaccumm effect for blood to suck in as above poster said
 
And to the question of will the tip work (of drawing back slightly upon breaking skin but before entering vein)--yes. It works well. As soon as you are in a vein you know cause the blood flows right into needle. I've done it countless times
 
even if blood doesn't kick into the needle, u will still see a dot of red, sometimes I cant take the chance of drawing back more to register, and risk losing the vein, I just go for it, the 90% of the time if I see that little red dot, im in the vein..i have horrible veins, so sometimes im in my vein and blood doesn't regsister to to weak flow and pressure, and still need to pull back to check for blood..its always good to pull back, but you don't need to keep doing it every second as u inject a dose, I seen people inject, pull back, inject more, pull back, etc..its risk for losing the vein and just tideous..
 
I really don't get that "tip".

If you use your tourniquet correctly, the pressure in the vein will exceed the pressure in the syringe. You just poke the vein, blood gets into the needle's base, you stop pushing and losen the tourniquet. If you want to make sure you can still draw blood now, but there is no need whatsoever to create underspressure before being in the vein, since the pressure inside the needle is lower than in the vein anyway. The blood has accumulated inside the vein because you don't let it out by applying pressure proximally to the injection site. It is forced into the syringe.

If you do not use a tourniquet it'd make sense, otherwise it's completely unnecessary.
 
Ive used this truck for years. At the least u.will have a tiny for of blood meaning.you are in
 
There will ALWAYS be a little.bubble of air, theres no avoiding it. The theory behind pumping it all out is to get as much out as possible, u need to pull back sone to make sure u are indeed in the vein idk if ur asking why u push it all out to begin with the answer to that is if u dont push it all out and then stick urself and are in a vein, you STILL need to pull back to see.blood. no blood will come into that little spot of air that was there before u stuck urself... its just the suction of it bc there is nowhere for that air to go then.. that being said ive injected 10 units of air before and im fine... u will always inject some air and it is fine so dpnt worry about that little 2 units of air in ur rig its fine
 
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